May 14 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Transportation Security
Administration failed to follow up on security breaches at
Newark Liberty International Airport and doesn’t effectively
track breakdowns elsewhere, the Homeland Security Department’s
inspector general said.

“This report identifies a gaping hole in our airport
security system and gives us a framework for how to improve
security at Newark Liberty Airport and all across the country,”
Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, said in a
statement today.

Lautenberg sought the report after incidents in Newark, a
hub airport for United Continental Holdings Inc., from January
2010 through May 2011. Those included an unauthorized man
gaining access to the secure area of the airport, shutting
operations for six hours, and an unscreened dead dog being
placed on a plane.

On April 27, after the period reviewed in the report,
Newark officials closed a checkpoint after an infant was passed
to its father without being properly screened.

The inspector general compared Newark’s responses to
reported breaches with other U.S. airports it didn’t identify.
Newark took corrective action 42 percent of the time, the
inspector general found.

Uniform Reporting

The TSA does a poor job defining what constitutes a
security breach and reviewing reports to make sure they’re
accurate, the inspector general said.

“Without an effective mechanism in place to gather
information about all security breaches, TSA is unable to
monitor trends or make general improvements to security,” the
report concluded.

The TSA is addressing the inspector general’s
recommendations by developing a single definition of a security
breach, and it is refining in-house data to more accurately
report, track and analyze trends, David Castelveter, an agency
spokesman, said in an e-mail.

“TSA’s goal at all times is to maximize transportation
security to stay ahead of evolving terrorist threats,”
Castelveter said.